If for insignificant, guilty, and impure persons there is to be a possibility of true religion, that is, of genuine fellowship with God, of salvation and eternal life, then God on his part must reestablish the broken bond, again take them into fellowship with him and share his grace with them, regardless of their guilt and corruption.--Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:204-5
He, then, must descend from the height of his majesty, seek us out and come to us, take away our guilt and again open the way to his fatherly heart. If God were to wait until we . . . had made ourselves worthy, in part or in whole, to receive his favor, the restoration of communion between him and ourselves would never happen, and salvation would forever be out of reach for us.
Bavinck is giving me a deeper sense of how helpless we really are, how completely lost, until grace reaches down and defiantly rescues us. Hallelujah; what a Savior.
2 comments:
Great stuff! Joy-giving!
Good post Brother Dane!
I searched the Google with the words – ‘God always takes the first step’ and I was not a little amazed to see that 99% of the results were all about MAN taking the first step in his salvation.
One individual - Khandielese Reyes, bluntly asserts –“Notice that it is WE who must make the first step, it must be OUR decision and desire to WANT a relationship with the Lord as He will not force this upon his children, yet it breaks his heart when we reject the invitation”.
So WHO takes the FIRST STEP in our reconciliation with God?
Spurgeon put it well when he said –
“I know some think that the sinner takes the first step but WE KNOW BETTER. If he did, it were like the old Romish miracle of St. Dennis, where we are told that after his head was cut off, he picked it up and walked two thousand miles with it in his hand! Whereupon, some wit observed that he did not see any wonder in the man’s walking two thousand miles—for all the difficulty lay in the FIRST STEP. Just so, I see no difficulty in a man’s getting all the way to Heaven, if he can but take the first step. For ALL THE MIRACLE LIES IN THAT FIRST STEP, the making the dead soul live, the melting of the adamantine heart, the thawing of the northern ice, the bringing down of the proud look. This is the work, this is the difficulty. And if man can do that himself, verily, he can do the whole work”. [Ezekiel’s Deserted Infant, Sermon 468]
“Blessed is the man whom THOU CHOOSEST, and CAUSEST to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in Thy courts”! [Psa 65:4]
“The Lord ALWAYS takes the initiative, and INVITES HIMSELF. And it was thus with you, Christian reader, when sovereign grace sought you out. You, too, were lying amid the “great multitude of impotent folk,” for by nature you were a child of wrath, “even as others” (Ephesians 2:3). Yes, you were lying in all the abject misery of a fallen creature — blind, halt, withered — unable to do a thing for yourself. Such was your awful state when the Lord, in sovereign grace, drew near to you. O thank Him now that He did not pass you by, and leave you to the doom you so richly deserved. Praise Him with a loud voice for His distinguishing grace that singled YOU out to be an object of His sovereign mercy”. [A.W. Pink]
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